Corporal punishment is the deliberate infliction of pain to someone as correction or punishment. When used for the punishment of criminals or slaves, it is usually applied using an instrument such as a cane or a whip such as the 'cat-o-nine-tails' once used in America and by the British or the Russian knout, which consisted of leather thongs with pieces of metal inserted, are other examples. Ancient Romans used a similar device: the scourge.
On a lighter note, Corporal Punishment was a character on the Krusty the Clown show, which is a fictional show on The Simpsons.
Many parents use a milder form of corporal punishment called "spanking", usually slapping their child's buttocks with the palm of their hand.
Corporal punishment differs from torture in that it is applied for disciplinary reasons and can therefore be limited, rather than to totally destroy the will of the victim. Severe and archaic, forms of corporal punishment are more or less indistinguishable from torture.
Corporal and capital punishment were long the main forms of punishment used by society. Roman society used a number of forms of corporal punishment including beating and mutiliation. This continued throughout medieval Europe.
Since the 18th century corporal punishment has tended to be gradually replaced by fines and incarceration, as the emphasis of criminal punishment has shifted from retribution and spectacle to reformation and surveillance. Corporal punishment took longest to die out as a punishment for violation of prison rules, as a military field punishment, and in schools.
It is sometimes thought that the punishment should punish the part of the body that sinned. Extreme examples include the amputation of the hands of a thief, as permitted by Sharia law, or during the Middle Age in Europe. Other examples include the punishment of adulterous women by the insertion of irritating substances, such as hot pepper, into their vagina. The song Les Radis by Georges Brassens tells of an adulterous woman being punished by the public insertion of a large radish into her rectum.
Examples of corporal punishment from the Enlightenment onwards have, however, tended to emphasise the administration of a set amount of pain by measurable procedures.
Several societies retain widespread use of judicial corporal punishment; this includes nations such as Singapore and Malaysia. The Singaporean practice of caning became much discussed in the U.S. in 1994, when American teenager Michael P. Fay was sentenced to such punishment for an offence of car vandalisation. In Singapore, male violent offenders and rapists are typically sentenced to caning in addition to a prison term.
Corporal punishment is further an important part of Islam's traditional Sharia law. According to some interpretations of that legal system, women may also be subject to corporal punishment. The person carrying out the whipping must however in this case retain a copy of the Quran (the holy book of Islam) in his armpit, which significantly limits the range of motion and thus the impact of the blows.
A small minority of Western thinkers argue that corporal punishment is a quick and effective method that should be considered as an alternative to fines and incarceration.
Corporal punishment of children remains an accepted social practice in many countries. Many countries allow corporal punishment of minors by their parents or guardians. A number retain it as a sanction for schools and still fewer allow the judicial corporal punishment of minors.
It is generally accepted even by proponents of the corporal punishment of children that excessive physical punishment amounts to child abuse. Opponents of the physical punishment of children argue that even the lesser forms of corporal punishment are abusive, an argument that is increasingly popular in many countries. A number of countries such as Sweden have banned the corporal punishment of children entirely.
Techniques and rituals from corporal punishment are also used as part of consensual sadomasochism.
